Barbara Hay

Dame Barbara Logan Hay (born 20 January 1953) is a British diplomat who served as Consul-General in Los Angeles from July 2009 to August 2013. Educated at Boroughmuir Senior Secondary School in Edinburgh, Hay joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1971 as a visa clerk. Hay had started learning Russian at school and continued her training in Russian by spending a year at the Defence School of Languages in Beaconsfield. Hay was posted to the Embassy in Moscow in 1975 as a Third Secretary, transferring to Johannesburg as Vice Consul in 1978. After some time in London, Hay worked in Montreal from 1985 as Vice Consul and Commercial lead, before returning to Moscow, now as First Secretary for Information in 1988. As the Russian Federation replaced the Soviet Union, the British Consulate-General in St Petersburg was re-opened, and Hay was appointed as its first new Consul-General in 1991. In 1992, Hay returned to London, before being appointed as Ambassador to Uzbekistan and concurrently (non-resident) Ambassador to Tajikistan in 1995. She was the first female ambassador in Tashkent. In 2000, she returned to St Petersburg for a second stint as Consul-General until 2004.